The meeting discussed ways of replenishing the United Nations Road Safety Trust Fund (UNRSTF) and priorities for funding. The basis for the exchange was a questionnaire which the HLP experts and advisors were invited to fill-in prior to the meeting. The questionnaire aimed to identify prioritisation criteria and to provide the UNRSTF secretariat with suggestions for the next call for proposals and their evaluation. As a result of the questionnaire, Africa and India were identified as key regions to focus on.

The meeting was also an occasion for an update on Regional Road Safety Observatories. First, the discussions highlighted the work done by the African Observatory since the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding by the FIA, the World Bank and the International Transport Forum in May 2018. This encompassed, among others, the organisation of the first multi-country workshop scheduled on 5-6 April, the creation of a website and an opportunity to co-operate with the ongoing Safer Africa project financed by the European Union. The experts also discussed the creation of an Asian Road Safety Observatory, with the first workshop being held in Singapore on 20-21 March. 

Other discussion topics included :

• the FIA-UNEP project on used cars imported in Africa;
• the FIA-WEF Road Safety Partnership pilot project in India ;
• the IDB-FIA initiative, “Movernos Seguros”, to engage the insurance industry in Latin America ;
• the FIA road safety Innovative Fundraising Mechanism.

For the first time, the meeting was also joined by a number of external road safety stakeholders. Particularly, companies such as Julius Baer and Uber joined the meeting to give the private sector’s perspective on bridging the funding gap in road safety area.